Archive: November, 2006

Weekends are back! For a while I had forgotten the distinction placed on the days starting with S – 3 months travelling blurs the days into one a little. If our first Glasgow weekend is anything to go by it should be a fun place to hang out for a while.

Saturday morning we went shopping at the local farmer’s markets – no mangoes & bananas a la Brisbane’s West End markets here. Instead it was root vegetables, cabbage and lots of free range meat. Had a delicious ‘farmer’s market’ vegetable soup for lunch followed by a random philosophical discussion on the future of architecture (post-post-modernism anyone) over a few pints at the pub.

Saturday night we headed to an isolated back street of Paisley where at the back of an indian restaurant, through an unmarked door we discovered (well actually were lead to) a Glasgow clubbing institution Club 69, complete with dirty techno circa 1993 pounding away all night. As we were warned at lunch, Club 69 is difficult to find, but even more difficult to get home from. After missing the bus back to civilisation we wandered the streets in search of non-existent taxis – finding only off duty ones, one of whom finally relented and took us home.

After a sleep in on Sunday awoke to a glorious sunny day – grabbed a coffee and went for a wander through some of the delightful streets and parks near where we are staying. Follwed that up by finally finding a place to live! We were quite exhausted by the end of it all and looking forward to some respite at work… well perhaps not quite that extreme.

The journey is over (almost anyway)! Chhay & I have both accepted a position at jm architects in Glasgow. Farewell sweet days of unplanned lesiure & welcome back the 40 hour week – it should be fun 😉

Our next project is finding somewhere to live – not knowing if we were going to be in Glasgow or Edinburgh has hindered us a little in this department. We are working fairly solidly on it however – so as not to impose anymore on our fantastic current host (there is only so long one can tolerate a couple of australians camping in your living room!!)

We haven’t really had a chance to explore Glasgow properly so this weekend we will be out & about (weather permitting) to try and get a proper feel for the place. We still have a few weeks before supplies from Australia arrive so our work & cold weather wardrobe is rather limited for the moment (my three pairs of shorts are not quite so useful right now).

We will be working together for the first time too – which will be fun! We will both be working on Design & Construct schools – not ideal work but good for an immersion into Brittish construction techniques.

It has been a hectic couple of weeks of interviews, and long walks in the crisp Edinburgh weather. After teasing us us with 2 weeks of beautiful clear weather the rain has well and truly arrived the last few days and if the free metro paper is to be believed (generally not) tommorrow’s maximum is a spectacular 5 degrees!

We are heading back down to London this weekend as we are temporarily homeless this weekend & we have a friend in town.

I’m writing this post from the top room of a beautiful old Edinburgh house, with strains of piano from the owner drifting in. The house is quite a good representation of professional migration to the UK – a brace of Australians, a Polish couple and a Spaniard (with a broad Scottish accent which is a little disconcerting).

We are here for at least a week and perhaps longer as no similar type of short term accommodation seems to exist in Glasgow. We checked out some more of Glasgow over the weekend – the prestigious Merchant City, and slightly seedy East End. We had excellent chaperones for the weekend courtesy of a connection made in Vietnam, and so were able to experience a little of Glasgow’s seething nightlife.

This week the focus is on interviews, it has been a while since either of us had been through the employment process, shoudl be fun!

Thats right folks, indeed I am. Beautiful crisp (12 degree) days since we’ve been here and clear blue skies have made wandering around very pleasant (just don’t forget your scarves, beanies, umbrella just in case…I am going to lose so many things in the northern hemisphere!)

I have another interview in Edinburgh next week, and as yet nothing in Glasgow so it may be the Royal Mile after all. I’m quite happy about either city – have heard positive reports about both (and it is only a 45 min train ride). We have to recreate our portfolio tommorrow as ours are safely tucked away in a container somewhere between Adelaide & Glasgow!

We have decided that Glasgow has only one bus, as we had the same driver today as who sold us our first tickets when we arrived – and we were sure that HE was a happer incarnation of the same driver who refused to sell us tickets moments before that due to a lack of change! Will test teh theory tommorrow & report back.

Finally made it to Glasgow! Arrived this afternoon, the real world close on our heals. We have a few applications in to firms in Glasgow, and an interview with an excellent firm in Edinburgh. Slight nervousness beginning to creep into the pit of my stomach at least & I think that Chhay is in the same boat.

We have only tasted a little bit of Glasgow so my impressions are still forming. The historic architecture is quite beautiful, with lots of rich red sandstone and the urban scale feels pleasant to wander about in. The council estates in the outer suburbs looked fairly grim as we came in on the train, but teh West End where we are currently based is very pleasant. Had a bit of a trek to find decent food (but that was mainly due to our budget limitations – those Aussies dollars don’t buy quite as much here as in Hanoi!!)